


Where the Bottle Lands

by biggrstaffbunch



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: M/M, Spin the Bottle, pre-serum fumbling in the dark, these kids
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-08
Updated: 2014-07-08
Packaged: 2018-02-08 01:15:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,826
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1921116
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/biggrstaffbunch/pseuds/biggrstaffbunch
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Steve doesn't know how to kiss. Bucky's more than willing to help. </p><p>[Pre-serum fumbling in the dark.]</p>
            </blockquote>





	Where the Bottle Lands

**Author's Note:**

> This was previously posted in Bite Size, my collection of Tumblr prompt fics, but I loved it so much I thought it deserved to be a stand-alone. I might have a serious problem with my pre-serum Steve/Bucky obsession. Send help.

“Bucky,” Steve says. “When I asked about Spin the Bottle, I didn’t exactly expect to, uh,  _practice_.”

It’s well after suppertime, and he’s sitting cross-legged on the dusty hardwood floor of his bedroom, clutching an empty soda bottle to his chest. Across from him, Bucky’s arranged in an indolent sprawl. They’re both in their pajamas, surrounded by a nest of blankets, the late autumn chill seeping through the window-panes of their shared apartment and settling heavily into the air. 

Which means the shiver under Steve’s skin must be from the cold. Not from anticipation. No, sir.

Bucky gives Steve a considering look, like he can actually hear the lie percolating in Steve’s head.

“Yeah,” he says, “Well, I’m just nice like that." 

The pitch of Bucky’s voice, low and playful, hooks Steve right in the belly.  It sends a jolt through Steve’s body, leaves him winded.

“Nice, huh?” Steve echoes thinly. “Sure. You’re a real  _nice_  guy.” His fingers curl around the soda bottle, tapping against the glass. “A regular Good Samaritan. A goddamned saint, even—"

“Don’t blaspheme, Steven,” Bucky interrupts. His face is serene, but there's a wicked glint in his eyes.

Steve rubs his thumb down the cool, ridged surface of the bottle. “Don’t tease, then,” he responds.

The mischief instantly disappears from Bucky’s expression. He sits up straight, leans over to grab Steve’s wrist. His hand is hot, his grip certain.

“Hey,” Bucky chides. “Steve.” He raises an eyebrow. “I ain’t teasin’."

And that’s Bucky all over isn’t it? Utterly, completely,  _dead_ serious even when something ridiculous is coming out of his mouth.

“Come on, Bucky,” Steve mutters. His skin feels tight, itchy. “What, like you’re gonna show me how to kiss? Walk me through, step-by-step?” He taps the bottle again, an unsteady rhythm. “Pull the other one, why don’t you."

Bucky tips his head, pinning Steve with his gaze. “How else are you supposed to learn?” he asks. Like it’s that easy. That simple.

And that’s  _another_ thing that’s Bucky all over: the patient, warm, exasperated affection in his voice as he cuts right to the heart of the issue. All the extra stuff doesn’t matter, not with the prevailing truth of their friendship—

If Steve needs taught, it’s Bucky who’ll do the teaching. Regardless of the subject, or Bucky’s level of expertise.

Not that Steve doubts Bucky’s expertise in this particular subject.

“Bucky,” Steve says, knuckles white from gripping the bottle like a talisman. He tries very hard to keep the surprise and fractured sense of— _want_ —from his voice. “But—we can't.”

There’s a defiant angle to Bucky’s chin when he reaches over and snatches the bottle from Steve’s grasp, tugging a little against the resistance that Steve provides. He places it very firmly on the ground between them and gives Steve a challenging look.

“Says who?” he demands.

Steve takes a gusty breath.  “Says you?” he offers. “You like girls.”

Bucky frowns. “Of course I do,” he says patiently. “So do you. That ain’t gonna change just ‘cause we smooch some, Stevie. And anyway,” Here he smiles, bright and devastating, "I like you, too.”

The tension in Steve’s chest— the little knot that’s been building since he first asked for Bucky’s help and Bucky had responded by looking so dangerously  _speculative—_ loosens.

“Oh,” Steve says.

Bucky arches an eyebrow and leans back onto his hands, satisfied. “Oh,” he agrees.

They sit and stare at each other for a moment.

Then Steve reaches forward, traces a finger around the rim of the bottle. “I just thought,” he falters, “The Cooper twins’ve got their party next week. They  _like_ parlor games. And you can never know when, or,  _if_ , maybe, someone would want to—so, I figured…I oughta—“

Bucky interrupts. “You oughta be kissed,” he says. “Full stop.” He shakes his head. “You’re a hell of a guy, Steve. Best friend I ever had. And one day, you’re gonna find someone who ain’t too stupid to see all that you got to offer.” His foot peeks out from under his blanket, nudges the bottle so it tips over, spins slowly. It ends its revolution pointing straight at Steve.

“Till then,” he says, “You got me.”

Which is a promise rather than a platitude, and that more than anything pulls Steve from the veil of anxiety and uncertainty that’s been hanging uncharacteristically around him the past two weeks, ever since the Cooper twins first invited Bucky to their party and Bucky reflexively added Steve onto that invite, too.

“I don’t much like pity,” he says, less to Bucky and more to the spectral image of Linda Cooper that’s currently laughing herself sick in his head. 

Bucky regards Steve steadily. “Good thing that ain’t what this is, then,” he replies.

And the funny thing is, Steve supposes that might be true. He’s good at reading people—too honest himself not to be able to pick up honest emotion in others—and there’s a telltale twitch to Bucky’s fingers, an impatience to the way he’s worrying at his bottom lip. 

He looks  _hungry_.

Probably Steve recognizes it because he knows the feeling well. This isn’t the first night that he’s thought of kissing. Or even of kissing Bucky. What he never imagined is that maybe— _maybe_ _—_  Bucky’s thought of kissing him back.

Well. The bolder, more reckless part of Steve pokes its head out, blinking hopefully into the shining light of this possibility.

He sits back on his heels and scratches his neck. “Alright,” he says.

Bucky’s eyes go slightly unfocused for a second, before snapping back to attention, dark with promise. “Alright,” he responds.

Muscles shift under Bucky’s shirt when he picks up the bottle again and puts it back on the floor between them, balancing it for a moment before letting it spin.

“The object of the game,” he explains unnecessarily, “is to spin the bottle and get kissed. Simple enough.” 

The bottle comes to a rest, pointing somewhere to the left of Steve.

“Except when it doesn’t land on anybody,” Steve remarks, feeling oddly thwarted. Bucky grins.

“Or when you got someone special in mind,” he adds. He doesn’t look at Steve when he says it, but his voice is intimate. Direct.

Another spin. The bottle whirls, lands pointing to Bucky’s left.

“You got a goal in this game, you gotta be smart,” Bucky says. He picks up the bottle, moves it between his hands, fingers curving around it in a way that makes Steve’s mouth go dry. “You gotta  _aim_."

This time, he  _does_ look at Steve, and the force of his gaze is like fire when it roars high, hot and whole, rushing over Steve’s skin till it spangles with heat.

He spins the bottle again. It turns and turns and turns and then—

So the game itself is simple, sure. But when the bottle stops. That— _that_ is when it gets complicated. That’s where Steve’s not sure what comes next, or how.

There’s a heavy pause, the air between them growing thick and warm. Steve’s mouth feels bruised already, at just the  _prospect_ of—

“Jesus,” Bucky says, amused, when Steve’s spent a couple seconds staring at the bottle pointing straight at him. “If you don’t wanna kiss the person the bottle lands on, you gotta make up some excuse or say  _pass_ , at least. It’s poor manners to just sit there, Steve."

Steve is about to respond indignantly, because there’s no way he’d ever let anyone feel rejected or insulted by saying  _pass_. But then he sees the uncertainty flickering at the corners of Bucky’s eyes, and he understands that this is Bucky’s way of checking. Making sure. 

Idiot, he thinks fondly. Fiercely.

“So, what’s the deal, pal,” Bucky asks, bravado a living thing in his voice. He and Steve are more than a little alike, in that respect. “You gonna renege or what?”

Steve huffs out a quiet breath, the counterpoint to his suddenly galloping heart. He shakes his head. Smiles, though he keeps his gaze fixed on the bottle.

“How could I,” he says lightly. “You aimed and everything.”

Bucky’s shoulders sag.  He hisses something that sounds like “Thank  _Christ_ ," and Steve could sing-song Bucky’s phrase about blaspheming right back at him, but his words get lost in his own choked-off gasp when Bucky comes up on his knees and crawls over to him.

In a moment, Bucky’s within arm’s reach, and stops. Puts a hand out. Winds his fingers through Steve’s hair, a gentle but proprietary touch. 

“C’mere, Steve,” he suggests, and Steve grins, allows himself to be tugged close, till he’s on his knees too, held steady by the hand at his nape.

“This the part where we kiss?” Steve inquires, voice scrupulously polite.

Bucky’s eyes narrow. “What do you think?” he asks, voice considerably less so.

Steve nods, once. “Okay,” he says. His heart thumps hard in its ribcage. “Okay.”

Then Bucky’s closing the distance, mouth slanting over Steve’s, a gentle press of his lips and nothing more.

It’s like the ground opens up under Steve’s knees and swallows him whole.

There’s a sense of falling, and he’s distantly aware of his fingers clutching at Bucky’s arms, holding tight. But the primary focus is Bucky’s mouth, his mobile, expressive, familiar mouth, moving against Steve's in this new, entirely unfamiliar way.

Steve’s never kissed anyone before, but Bucky’s a confident teacher and he feels  _good._ His lips are soft, and hot, and full. The fit of them against Steve’s own is almost obscene, but Steve meets every advance with enthusiasm, sinking into a dawning wonder of the easy way the two of them slot together, how each shift and tilt of the head brings them closer and closer, till Bucky’s groaning into Steve’s mouth and then—then—

A stroke of Bucky’s tongue and there’s a lightning bolt of pleasure that zooms across Steve’s nerves, elicits a broken groan of his own from deep in his chest. He circles his tongue around Bucky’s, moving on instinct, wanting more and uncertain of how to get it.

The slick, rhythmic heat of the kiss sends blood rushing to the surface of Steve’s skin, the pits of his belly, pooling in his groin. His chest heaves, and he makes a noise, something like Bucky’s name and a  _Jesus Christ_ and  _more, com’n, more._

At the sound, Bucky breaks away, breathing heavy. His lips are pink, and his eyes look bleary. His hand, still cupping the back of Steve’s head, shakes with fine tremors. Steve feels similarly dazed, mouth swollen.

“You don’t usually slip someone the tongue in Spin the Bottle,” Bucky says. “Don’t learn from my example.”

Steve looks out from under his lashes, trying for a smile. 

“Dunno if I picked up your technique well enough anyway,” he says. “Might need more…practice.”

In the end, the two of them never do go to the Cooper twins’ party. 

But Steve gets his practice all the same.

 


End file.
